MY BOOK WAS DOUBLE-DUTCH TO THE DUTCH

Radio Record, Volume XIII, Issue 11, 21 August 1939, Page 18

MY BOOK WAS DOUBLE-DUTCH TO THE DUTCH

by

Beverley

Nichols

opportunity of seeing our-. selves as others see us. Or, rather, of seeing ourselves as others do not see us. In case that sounds obseure, I should explain that I have received a letter from a firm of Dutch publishers concerning the translation of my latest novel, **Revue."’ It is not a very complicated book, and its vocabulary is not unduly extensive. But-according to the publishers-it is a very "English" book, and it is giving them a good deal of difficulty. In fact, they enclosed four closelyprinted pages of phrases which, as far as they are concerned, might as well be Dutch, if you will forgive a bad pun. For example: "Hornpipe." We suppose we can alter this to bagpipe? Oh, Holland! Shame on you! At one stroke to cast such a slur on the British Navy and the Scottish people! It would be difficult to decide which would cause the greater flow of expletives, to ask a sailor to dance the bagpipe, or to ask a Gordon Highlander to give us a tune on the hornpipe. "Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all." Other words, please. What other words could possibly be substituted for Old Uncle Tom Cobley and all? They have a tang and a savour that is as English .. . no, as local ...as the breeze that sweeps over Dartmoor, high above above Widecombe, You might as well try to turn the old mare black. The magic would vanish at a stroke. "Peckham." Please give us the point. That’s a nasty one! I’m afraid E sneered at Peckham. Or, rather, ¥ caused another character to sneer t Peckham. Perhaps it would be st to write and tell our Dutch friends that I fell into an error common among the British-the error of running down their own institutions when they know nothing about them. "Glamour girls." Who are these persons? HAVE just had a unique

Happy Holland! That such a question can be asked implies a freedom from a multitude of horrors. "Clean-limbed." This means having bathed? No. For some strange reason that is precisely what it does not mean. It has a moral significance. Why this should be-I frankly do not know. "He's not West End. He's just plain fish and chips." This phrase, which refers to a low comedian, so completely baffled the Dutch that they did not attempt to put their puzzlement into words. They merely wrote a long row of interrogation marks!

"Ruritania." We cannot discover this country. That, somehow, is a saddening thought. I feel about Ruritania rather as Voltaire felt about God. He said that if there had not been a God it would have been necessary to invent one. These are only a few examples of the phrases which have mystified the Dutch. And, though this is a light and flippant article, it may serve a more serious purpose if it reminds us that there are many other branches of our national life and policy which to us are too obvious to demand explanation, but to the foreigner are dark, mysterious, and, therefore, suspect.